Starrgirl, Ayra Starr‘s third full-length studio album, tops this week’s new music poll.

Listeners voted in a poll published Friday (Aug. 14) on Billboard, choosing the Nigerian Afropop star’s latest release as their favorite new music.

Starrgirl rose above a number of new releases this week — from music acts including KATSEYE, Phoebe Bridgers, Troye Sivan, Becky G and more. At the poll’s closing time on Sunday, Starr’s new LP came out on top with more than 87% of the vote.

Starrgirl, the follow-up to the singer’s The Year I Turned 21 album (released in 2024), is a collection of 16 tracks, including recent single “Tornado” and last year’s Grammy-nominated Wizkid collab, “Gimme Dat” — plus features with names like Zayn, Rema, Leon Thomas and Danny Ocean. Starr expanded her sound on the project, bringing in more dance and R&B notes.

“I’m so proud of the woman I’ve allowed myself to become through the making of this album and every version of me that had to exist to get here,” Starr wrote on Instagram on release week.

In an interview with Variety, the singer said moving to New York inspired the new music: “I feel like I was a different person in New York than I was in any part of the world, and I just liked who I was,” she said, explaining that as a woman in her 20s, she was just “acting my age. I’m living my age. I just liked experiencing life, and it wasn’t just about work, work, work. It was about enjoying all the work I’ve done and just allowing myself to be, you know? And seeing myself from the lens of complete, and ‘I am,’ instead of ‘I have to be.’”

“And that’s what Starrgirl is,” she said. “It’s not really an alter ego, but it’s a part of me that already is complete, does not have to perform, does not have to be. Because being a Black girl and an African girl, we grew up with, ‘You have to be this.’ There’s a certain type of anxiety that is deep, layers, layers, layers, layers within you, that you just feel like you have to unlearn. But when you remove yourself from that and go deep, deep you start to understand that you don’t need to be anything other than what you already are.”

Trailing behind Starrgirl on Billboard‘s poll this week are KATSEYE’s “WILD,” Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend and Troye Sivan’s “She’s the Best.”

See the final results of this week’s poll below.

Earth, Wind & Fire drummer John Paris has been placed in a medically induced coma following what his family has described as a critical medical emergency earlier this month.

Paris, 58, was hospitalized on Aug. 6, shortly before the group was due to perform with Lionel Richie at the Chase Center in San Francisco. The show was postponed minutes before it was scheduled to begin, with the band citing “a medical emergency involving a member of our band.”

The San Francisco Fire Department confirmed that crews responded to a report of a cardiac incident at the venue and transported one person to a hospital in critical condition, though the family has not publicly confirmed the nature of Paris’ condition.

In an update shared to Facebook on Thursday (Aug. 13) by Shelly Clark White, the wife of Earth, Wind & Fire bassist Verdine White, the family said doctors placed Paris in an induced coma on arrival at the hospital so they could provide critical care. “From the very beginning, Kathy and daughter Kyla remained by his side,” the statement read, referring to Paris’ wife, musician Kathy Merrick, and their daughter.

The update said Paris briefly regained consciousness at one point, opening his eyes and asking for his wife. After seeing her, he turned to a close friend and joked, “Get me outta here.” The family described the moment as bringing “tears, laughter, hugs and renewed hope,” but said it was short-lived, as Paris soon experienced rising blood pressure and difficulty breathing, prompting doctors to sedate him again so his body could stabilize.

“John’s journey is far from over,” the statement concluded. “There is so much hope that surrounds him.” A GoFundMe campaign established to support Paris and his family has raised nearly $70,000 toward a $75,000 goal, with several of his bandmates among the donors.

Earth, Wind & Fire resumed their tour two days after the postponed show, with former member Sonny Emory filling in on drums. The San Francisco concert has been rescheduled for Sept. 26. Paris joined the band in 2001, playing on studio albums including 2003’s The Promise and 2005’s Illumination, and has also worked with artists including Patti LaBelle and Sheila E.

Formed in Chicago in 1969 by the late Maurice White, Earth, Wind & Fire became one of the most successful and influential groups in American music, selling more than 90 million records worldwide with a blend of R&B, funk, soul, jazz and pop. The band scored their sole Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 with 1975’s “Shining Star,” which also topped the Hot Soul Songs chart and won a Grammy, while enduring hits including “September,” “Boogie Wonderland” and “Let’s Groove” — their biggest Hot 100 hit, at No. 3 — became staples of the era. The group topped the Billboard 200 with 1975’s That’s the Way of the World and Gratitude, won six Grammy Awards, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

The band is currently the subject of a Questlove-directed documentary that premiered in June.

The Greatest Showman is heading to London’s West End.

On Friday (Aug. 14), Disney Theatrical Group announced that the stage adaptation of the hit 2017 film will open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2027.

The announcement follows the production’s sold-out world premiere run earlier this year at Bristol Hippodrome. The news was revealed during D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event at Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

The West End production will star Oliver Tompsett as P.T. Barnum, with Samantha Barks as his wife, Charity Barnum. The principal cast also includes Ben Joyce as Phillip Carlyle, Vajèn van den Bosch as Jenny Lind and Malinda Parris as Lettie Lutz. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

The musical is based on the 2017 film starring Hugh Jackman as Barnum, who goes from being unemployed and struggling to creating a spectacular circus that eventually grows into the famous Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The film’s soundtrack became a major commercial success, spending two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2018. The album features songs performed by the film’s cast, including Jackman, Barks, Zac Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams and Keala Settle.

The movie’s “This Is Me” also won the Golden Globe for best original song in 2018.

The West End production will bring back the film’s signature songs, including “The Greatest Show,” “A Million Dreams,” “Come Alive,” “Rewrite the Stars,” “Never Enough” and “This Is Me,” while introducing new music created specifically for the stage musical.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the film’s songs, will return to write the stage production’s score. Tim Federle is penning the book, while Casey Nicholaw will direct and choreograph, according to Variety.

Hundreds of fans lined the streets of a seaside Welsh village on Saturday (Aug. 15) to bid farewell to late singer Bonnie Tyler as her coffin was brought home.

The Grammy-nominated Welsh pop star, beloved worldwide for her 1983 chart-topping power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” died last month in a hospital in Portugal. She was 75.

Tyler was hospitalized in May in Faro, where she had a home, for emergency intestinal surgery.

Locals and fans from around the United Kingdom and beyond took to the streets of Mumbles, near the city of Swansea, to see the hearse, which carried her coffin, draped in a Welsh flag. Dozens waited outside the singer’s former home or left floral tributes there.

“She was always coming home and making sure that she came back to her fans in Wales,” said Carys Edwards, 18. “Her songs really did touch a lot of people here in Wales; we loved her a lot.”

Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins, a coal miner’s daughter in public housing with an outside toilet in Skewen, Wales, about 7 miles outside Swansea. She grew up with three sisters and two brothers.

The singer earned three Grammy nods and in 2013 represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in 19th. She was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2022 for her services to music by Queen Elizabeth II, thanks mainly to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

The ballad shot to the top of the charts in Britain and the United States and has had more than 1 billion streams, boosted by real eclipses in 2017, 2024 — and most recently during this week’s solar eclipse.

She was also known for other hits including “It’s a Heartache” and “Holding Out For a Hero,” from the soundtrack of the film Footloose.

A celebration of Tyler’s life for family and friends will take place at a church in Swansea on Monday (Aug. 17), before the singer makes a final journey through her hometown of Skewen.

Dave Marsh, one of the most influential music writers of his generation and a passionate activist for health care, social justice and freedom of expression, died on Friday (Aug 14).

The cause of his death has not been reported but he had been in declining health in recent years.

Born in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1950, Dave grew up immersed in the sounds of Detroit — Motown, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll — inspiring a lifelong belief in the power of music.

Marsh was among the first editors of Creem magazine when it launched in 1969. He wrote extensively for Rolling Stone and other publications and authored more than two dozen books on artists including Elvis Presley, The Who and Bruce Springsteen. His 1979 biography, Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story, became a New York Times bestseller. In 1993, Marsh shared a Grammy for best album notes for Aretha Franklin’s Queen of Soul.

He also co-founded the newsletter Rap & Rock Confidential and, in 2004, joined SiriusXM, hosting Kick Out the Jams for 19 years, along with Live from E Street Nation and Live from the Land of Hope and Dreams.

He was married to Barbara Carr, longtime co-manager of Springsteen. Following the death of their daughter, Kristen Ann Carr, in 1993 at age 21 of sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, Marsh co-founded and served as a trustee of the The Kristen Ann Carr Fund to advance sarcoma research and support families affected by cancer.

“Here on E Street, the irreplaceable loss of Dave Marsh has us heartbroken,” Springsteen wrote in a statement shared Saturday on Instagram. “My great friend Dave, with his straight out of Detroit attitude, was a true Rock ‘n’ Roll lifer. He was soulful, intelligent, heartfelt, opinionated, bruising and often fantastically argumentative. Watching Jon Landau and Dave drive each other crazy over some arcane piece of music would make my day. He wrote the first book about me, Born To Run, and Dave always had my back. He deeply believed in what I was trying to accomplish and his lifetime of support meant the world to me.”

Added Springsteen, “More than anything else, I admired Dave as a man of conscience and commitment. He lived and stuck by his values come hell or high water. Wherever he is, I hope he’s receiving some of the grace, happiness and reward he’s brought into my life. God bless you Dave.”

“Dave Marsh has always been a tireless advocate of justice, human rights and rock ’n’ roll,” wrote Tom Morello, co-founder of Rage Against the Machine, in 2023 upon the publication of an anthology of Marsh’s work titled Kick Out The Jams: Jibes, Barbs, Tributes, and Rallying Cries from 35 Years of Music Writing.  

“His pen and voice are an important player in the history of the music we love and the struggle for a more just and decent world,” Morello wrote.

Lauren Onkey, the former senior director of NPR Music, in her introduction to Kick Out the Jams, wrote: “Dave Marsh has been writing about music like our lives depended on it.”

In 2021, a host of authors, activists and artists — including Morello, Pete Townshend, Springsteen, Nona Hendryx, Dion DiMucci, Jackson Browne and Steven Van Zandt — took part in online sessions billed as ” Land of Hope and Dreams: A Celebration of Dave Marsh’s Work and Vision.”

Across more than five decades, through his writing about music, Marsh offered insights into issues of community, class, race, politics, health, the environment, the music industry and more. Marsh also was a generous mentor and advocate for many younger music writers.

Marsh “helped build alliances that fought against racial and class bigotry and for free speech, voting rights, economic justice — inside and outside the music industry — environmental justice, universal health care, cancer research, as well as visions of human liberation,” said longtime friend and anthology co-editor Danny Alexander at the time of that 2023 celebration. “Perhaps more than anyone I know, he taught me what that old Woody Guthrie line meant: ‘Nobody wins unless everybody wins.’”

Marsh was predeceased by his daughters Kristen Ann Carr and Sasha Carr. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Carr. A complete list of his survivors and plans for a service were not immediately available.

After nearly 30 years together, Slipknot is parting ways with keyboardist and DJ Sid Wilson.

The news came in a since-deleted Instagram and website post from the Grammy-winning heavy metal band on Friday (Aug. 14) after weeks of speculation about Wilson’s status in the group. The statement remains posted on the Instagram account for Knotfest, the music festival created in 2012 by Slipknot.

“Effective immediately, Slipknot will no longer be associated with Sid Wilson,” the statement reads. “We wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

The Knotfest Instagram caption adds: “Slipknot have parted ways with Sid Wilson. The announcement could briefly be found on the band’s website.”

Billboard has reached out to a rep for Slipknot for further details.

Wilson joined Slipknot in 1998, having been recruited by the Des Moines, Iowa-founded heavy metal band as its ninth member for his impressive DJing skills. He joined just before the group’s mainstream breakthrough, when they signed to Roadrunner Records and released their 1999 self-titled debut album.

The project was the band’s first on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart (peaking at No. 51 in May 2000), where they’ve since landed six top 10s and three No. 1s: 2008’s All Hope Is Gone, 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter and 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind. In 2006, the band took home their lone Grammy, best metal performance for the song “Before I Forget,” among 11 career nominations.

Last month, TMZ reported that Wilson — known for wearing a gas-mask-like face covering amid the famously masked band — was notified July 31 that he’d been let go from the group. With no official word from the band or Wilson himself, comments from Slipknot guitarist Jim Root on Instagram planted seeds of doubt around the report. “Don’t believe everything you read,” Root wrote in a since-expired Instagram Story post, according to People. “Stop. Think. Take a breath. Sit with it for awhile. Maybe. Just maybe even wait until there’s more information.”

Friday’s posted-and-deleted statement exactly two weeks later is the first word from Slipknot on the status of Wilson, who also reportedly broke off his engagement to Kelly Osbourne in March.

Slipknot’s most recent album was 2022’s The End, So Far, which debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

Courtney Love has told fans that her long-awaited new album is complete, while opening up about a health scare that she says nearly killed her after moving from Los Angeles to London in 2019.

In a video posted to Instagram, the Hole frontwoman said she was stepping back from social media for a few weeks and addressed persistent questions about her next record. “A lot of you are asking where my record is at. It’s done. It’s kind of been done,” she said. “It’s a really good record. I put a lot into it.”

Love went on to describe the illness that followed her relocation to London. Without specifying a diagnosis, she said her body “exploded” and that she was frequently hospitalized. She has spoken before about serious health struggles, revealing in 2021 that she had nearly died the previous year while hospitalized for anemia, during which she said she was “stigmatized for being an addict” by doctors.

She closed the video reflecting on Hole’s most recent album, 2010’s Nobody’s Daughter, and its commercial disappointment. “Spectacularly humbling,” she said, recalling playing a festival slot at 11 a.m. while Limp Bizkit and 30 Seconds to Mars headlined. Looking ahead, she praised the current state of music: “People sound great live. The girlies are amazing.” She added: “I will be back.”

One of the defining figures of 1990s alternative rock, Love formed Hole in Los Angeles in 1989. The band’s 1994 album Live Through This — released days after the death of her husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain — became a landmark of the era, and its 1998 follow-up Celebrity Skin became the band’s highest-charting release, debuting at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 and earning four Grammy nominations. Its title track spent time atop Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Hole disbanded in 2002; Love has released one solo album, 2004’s America’s Sweetheart, and the band briefly reformed with a new lineup for 2010’s Nobody’s Daughter, which reached No. 15 on the Billboard 200.

Life’s a party when you’re living in paradise. That’s the bassline according to Peking Duk, the duo of Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles, which has been dropping electronic bangers for more than decade and which, on Friday (Aug. 14), blew open the gates to Paradise, their debut album.

Good things and long waits, well, they’re fused at the hip. Paradise arrives with an array of guest talent, from Killer Mike, Rico Nasty, Phantogram, to Aussie singer and songwriter Matt Corby, and is three years in the making.

At the top of the 14-song collection, the familiar voice of Jack Thompson, the legendary actor and activist who led a slew of classic films in the ‘70s and ‘80s and presented to the world one of the enduring images of the hard-partying, and equally progressive, Australian bloke.

The lads got the surprise of their young lives when, in their teens, met Thompson in Hyde’s mother’s kitchen. “My mom’s got some friends in strange places. And Jack Thompson seems to be one of them,” he quips.

Another familiar sound, the Roland TB-303, the match that lit the ‘90s rave scene, drops in on the track, appropriately titled “Jack Thompson,” and the adventure in Paradise begins.

The production pair can’t be blamed for being idle. Or slack on output. Hyde recently completed the latest cycle as his alter-ego, the party-animal pop star Keli Holiday, a project that yielded an ARIA Award (best video for “Dancing2”), a domestic top 3 album for Capital Fiction (his second solo effort), and tour dates across North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. Styles has been on the road, too, with Y.O.G.A. (You’re Only Great Always), his own solo project that drips in outlaw country spirit and after-hours rave energy.

“Coming back to Peking Duk,” says Hyde in a late-evening chat with Billboard at a pub in Paddington, central Sydney, “it makes us feel like, especially once we started working on the album, that we’re just f—ing kids again. We don’t know what we’re doing. There’s no expectation or pressure.”

The two mates got to work on Paradise as life began returning to a new-normal post-pandemic. The duo had parted ways after a lengthy relationship with Sony Music and struck a new deal with Virgin Music, a label-partnership type arrangement that leaves creative control in Peking Duk’s hands. “We just did a bit of a reset,” says Styles. “We’ve been doing singles for 16 years now, we’ve never done an album. And we started to cook from absolutely nowhere. It felt like fun.”

“Fun” could be Hyde and Styles’ middle names. In August 2024, the lads were front and center of a buzzy cultural moment when they headlined a carpark rave at a Bunnings outlet in Melbourne, the Australian home improvements chain. Two years earlier, they teamed with KFC for a one-off menu item. It was called the Peking Cluck Burger.

The lads met at a skate park in their hometown, Canberra, a town that has produced some of the Australia’s hottest acts of late, including Genesis Owusu and Teen Jesus And The Jean Teasers.

“All of our core memories were formed in our town,” Hyde reflects. “Growing up in Canberra, it really was paradise. It’s awesome living for every single f—ing moment.”

Peking Duk completed their first aerial move with the 2014 single “High” featuring Nicole Millar, which crashed the top 10 on the ARIA Chart (peaking at No. 5), bagged an ARIA for best dance release and came in at No. 2 on triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown. They partnered with SAFIA on followup “Take Me Over,” and with Styalz and Swedish electro-pop act Elliphant for 2016’s “Stranger,” which collected song of the year at the ARIAs.

With this new project, Hyde and Styles went with a new approach in the studio. These two seasoned professionals competed. “It was like a video game. Like Mario Kart. Who’s gonna f—ng win?,” recounts Hyde. “Leaning into each other’s strengths on this record has been the growth of us as humans.”

Styles describes the creative process as like working a ball of putty, and “making this weird little f—ing gremlin. It was like, you f—ing make his nose. I’ll make the eyes, and then let’s jam on the hat.”

That teamwork results in a joyful collection. A party, even, with touches of Avalanches, soul and small-hour vibes.

Hyde has the last word. “We knew all that we really cared about was just making a f—ing sick album,” he says. “There were a couple of exciting distractions along the way. But nothing was more exciting than just being idiots in the studio, just fumbling around with 303s and just getting lost in the music.”

Stream Paradise below.

Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to New Music Friday’s most essential releases each week — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond. 

Last week, we featured Karol G, Role Model, FLO, Stray Kids and more.

This week, three is the magic number: indie-rocker Phoebe Bridgers releases her highly-anticipated third album, Lost Weekend; KATSEYE drops its third EP; and Ayra Starr shares her third album as well… plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below:

Phoebe Bridgers, Lost Weekend

After Phoebe Bridgers performed a semi-impromptu, highly in-demand, phone-free show at New York’s Madison Square Garden in early June, it was clear something was coming. And just a few weeks later, that hunch was confirmed when the indie-rockstar announced her first solo album in six years, Lost Weekend. Across its 16 tracks, “the album fluctuates between grief and elation, agitation and contentment, as Bridgers sings like someone who has loved and lost — and still has something to lose,” writes Billboard‘s Christine Werthman for the album’s tracks ranked. Surely, it’s the perfect album to get lost in this weekend. — LYNDSEY HAVENS

KATSEYE, WILD

Despite this girl group’s ongoing lineup changes (with Manon and Sophia both on mental health breaks), one thing is certain: KATSEYE brings the energy. Its third EP, WILD (out on HYBE x Geffen Records) is packed with high-impact, hard-hitting tracks like single “Pinky Up” and focus track “Hootie Frutti.” Meanwhile, sassier songs like single “Animal” and “That Way” slow it down — but just a bit. As a release for the EP states, “the project captures the feeling of a wild ride fueled by growth and transformation” and marks the start of a new “electrifying new era” for the now foursome. — L.H.

Troye Sivan, “She’s the Best”

Troye Sivan is back — and not only with a new single. The pop singer’s low-toned “She’s the Best” — about all the qualities, expected and less so, of a particular person that wows him — serves as the lead single and title track of his fourth album, out Oct. 9 on Interscope. “She’s the Best is a painting that captures my life in all of its moods and colours,” Sivan said in a statement. “It explores the high-octane highs of the last few years, and the solitude and longing that sat underneath. It’s chaotic, layered, organic, troubled and alive. It feels like the truest and most creative version of myself I’ve ever shared. At some point along the way I realised: the only constant in my life keeping me somewhat sane has not been the work, or the men, but the feminine. Thank god for them.” — L.H.

Ayra Starr, STARRGIRL 

Nigerian Afropop sensation Ayra Starr is back with STARRGIRL, her third studio album and first full-length effort since 2024’s The Year I Turned 21. The new 16-track set — which includes the Grammy-nominated, Wizkid-assisted “Gimme Dat” — expands the 24-year-old’s sonic foundation with more pronounced notes of dance and R&B. Effortlessly fostering synergy with Leon Thomas, kwn and ZAYN (as well as Danny Ocean on a Latin remix of fan-favorite “Hot Body”), Ayra Starr spends her latest LP proving she can dominate in any lane her heart desires. — KYLE DENIS

Jorja Smith, “I Lied, You Lied”

Ahead of her third album releasing next week, English singer-songwriter Jorja Smith is sharing one more single to preview the set. “I Lied, You Lied,” is a heart-racing track in both its uneven production and the story she tells that essentially details a race to see whose lie will come to the surface first. Yet, only a voice as smooth and serene as Jorja’s can manage to sound totally unbothered through it all. — L.H.